Student of Life
Do you need a new car? Do you need to live in a house by yourself? Do you need a vacation? No, no, and no. A job? Maybe not. What do you need? Only what matters. Something you love to do, a plan to make it happen, and focus.
Get rid of everything that doesn’t matter, to make what you really want a reality.
Every minute you spend doing one thing is a minute you give up something else. There is an opportunity cost for everything you do.
Everybody has 100 great ideas. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. It seems like I get a new one everyday. But, success isn’t about having a great idea.
Success is about choosing to say – No – to 99 other good ideas, and choosing the one great idea that you love. Because with every extra thing you pursue, the probability of success, on anything, diminishes quickly. What gets focused on, grows.
Isn’t everything binary? Maybe. But for now, let’s just consider risk.
Risk is simply uncertainty of an outcome. It can be thought of as a choice between two options. Either you take the risk, or you don’t.
A helpful way to consider whether to take the risk is to ask:
A. What is the worst case scenario if it doesn’t go well? In a sense you are asking – What is the cost of failure?
Then, ask yourself:
B. What is the cost of not taking the risk. This is an opportunity cost. In other words – What will you give up if you don’t take the risk, assuming it would succeed?
They say that at the end of your life you will regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did. Take a risk, and if you fail you will be disappointed. Refuse to take the risk, and you will be left with regret. I’d rather be disappointed than regretful. How about you?
I think everybody should have a “side hustle.” Something they do to make a little money on the side. For example, a friend of mine has some embroidery machines he has owned for a while. They are just sitting. In 2018 he has set a goal to generate an extra $50,000 in income from his side business making marketing products for companies. This income is over and above his regular job. That extra money is not earmarked for any bills, and will go straight into investments, which will, in turn, generate more income.
A side hustle also gives you a chance to pursue something you want to do. And if it is successful, it can provide a safety net from your main job. You may end up making your side hustle your main gig.
What’s your 2018 side hustle?
It seems to me that when it comes to overcoming challenges, there are two type off people in the world. There are those that want to talk about the problem, and then those that want to find a solution.
80% of the people are focused on the problem, 80% of the time. Who are the 20% that focus on solutions? Those are the ones succeeding.
Are you creating something today? Your competition is. If your not deeply aware of the fact that there is always someone working, often harder than you, to disrupt whatever your good at, then you have already lost.
It is healthy to have a keen sense of paranoia about the fact that there is always a younger, more attuned, version of you out there somewhere that will eat your lunch if you don’t stay on top of your expertise. And they aren’t going to take you out from head on. Rather, they are going to hit you from the angle you least expect.
Risk is uncertainty associated with a future outcome.
If the future outcome were known, then it would be priced into whatever you are doing, and there would be no opportunity to profit. Profit is due to human capital being expended in a risky endeavor.
No human capital, no profit. No risk, no profit.
There is one endeavor you will never quit. One enterprise you will never stop investing in. One project you will never stop promoting. You.
Tomorrow when you wake up and open your eyes, ask yourself – What do I most want to do with my day? My life? Do that.
Starting businesses is so insanely difficult, that you need to invest in one that you can’t quit. One that you will never give up on. And the one enterprise that you never have an option to quit is – You. Do you. The rest will fall into place.
I am one of the best procrastinators. It is a skill I developed in college, and have refined over the years, to perfection. In addition, to infusing a task with excitement (or maybe, . . . horror), the practice of waiting until closer to a deadline allows me to think through an idea, pivot if necessary, and when the time come to get it done I can focus all of my energy on it.
The problem is that when there is no deadline some things simply never happen. We often call this procrastination, but, it isn’t. Rather, it is simply failing to start.
If not now, when?
A friend of mine is a marketing genius. Kevin Franciose has been starting businesses, and marketing them for 30 years, and some of the ideas he comes up with are amazing.
A while back a young colleague of his asked for some advice as to how to get a job that was advertised. The young man was a helicopter pilot and wanted a special angle when applying for the job. He had been waiting for months for a call from the company. Kevin’s idea nailed it. He told him to buy a nice remote control helicopter. He might spend $500 he said, but, if he wanted the job, it was worth it.
Kevin told him to ship the new helicopter to the hiring manager at the company where he was applying, with a note. The note read: “Call me if you need help flying this.” he also included his resume. The guy got an interview, and the job.
In today’s world everybody has skills. To excel you have to set yourself apart with creativity.